CAIR-SFBA calls Stanford protest prosecution 'disproportionate from the outset'

California AG drops charges after mistrial, prosecutor recusal

The San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the United States, responded Monday to the California attorney general’s office’s resolution dropping all felony charges against five Stanford University students who took part in a June 2024 campus protest against Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

“Advocacy for Palestinian rights should not be subjected to harsher treatment than other forms of political expression,” the organization said in a statement.

Zahra Billoo, the office’s executive director, said in a statement that the felony prosecution never should have been brought. “These students should never have faced felony charges for their part in a campus protest,” Billoo said. “Treating protest activity as felony conduct was disproportionate from the outset, and putting them through another trial after more than two years, a mistrial and the disqualification of the district attorney’s office because of a conflict of interest would only have compounded that harm.”

“We welcome the attorney general’s decision not to pursue another trial and the court’s approval of a path to dismissal,” Billoo added.

Under the resolution reached by the state attorney general’s office, each of the five students will complete 100 hours of community service, and the group will pay about $50,000 in restitution. “We believe this outcome serves the best interests of the community and all parties involved,” a spokesperson for the state attorney general’s office said.

Three other students who earlier accepted plea deals will also have convictions overturned after completing community service.

The five were among 12 students who barricaded themselves inside Stanford’s president’s office for an hour in June 2024, asking the university to divest itself from companies connected to Israel. They were arrested at the scene, suspended and banned from campus for two years.

The students had faced charges of felony conspiracy to trespass and felony vandalism, which carried potential prison sentences and thousands of dollars in restitution, UPI reported, citing The Guardian.

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen did not announce the felony charges until April 2025, UPI reported, citing The Guardian. Five of the students went to trial in early 2026, and the trial ended in a hung jury.

In May, a judge ordered Rosen to recuse himself from the case over a conflict of interest, UPI reported, citing The Guardian. The California attorney general’s office took over the prosecution.

Rosen was removed after the students’ legal teams submitted evidence that he was using the case to fundraise his re-election campaign on a platform of fighting “antisemitism,” although the students were not charged with hate crimes, UPI reported.